KURTZ AGAIN

Stanley Kurtz has written a long article about changing family structure in Scandinavia. It’s a not unfamiliar tale. In countries with high levels of secularism, a vast welfare state, and the option of registered partnerships rather than marriage, you would indeed expect traditional marriage to be in decline. There are other factors as well, as Kurtz details them: “Contraception, abortion, women in the workforce, spreading secularism, ascendant individualism…” All of this is not exactly staggering news. What is staggering is Kurtz’s attempt to show that gay marriage in these countries is somehow responsible for this shift. First off: the entire premise of the piece – that marriage for gays is legal in Norway, Denmark and Sweden – is factually untrue. There are no marriage rights for gays in the countries he cites. There are, instead, what are called “registered partnerships.” These partnerships are open to heteros as well as homos. So the entire premise of the piece is false. Even if Kurtz were able to prove in any way a linkage between the emergence of “registered partnerships” and the decline of marriage, it would have no relevance to the debate on equal marriage rights for gays in the U.S. In fact, it shows what many of us have been arguing for over a decade. The emergence of gay couples in society is a fact. Sane conservatives need to acknowledge this rather than run away from it. Given that such a presence is here: what should we do to respond to it? My answer is: co-opt gays into the existing and paramount institution for coupling, i.e. marriage. Oppose all counterfeits – like civil unions – which, because they are also open to straights, obviously do undermine marriage. Don’t let your homophobia get in the way of your conservative common sense. Defend marriage from civil unions and domestic partnerships – not from gay couples.

CORRELATION, CAUSES, LINKS, WHATEVER: Then Kurtz tries to argue that there is a causation effect between registered partnerships for gays and the decline of traditional marriage. He proves nothing. There are so many independent variables – from secularism to contraception to cultural gender roles and on and on – that such a conclusion is intellectually preposterous. Kurtz does his best to hide this obvious truth. Check the words: the decline in marriage and gay registered partnerships are “linked”; they are both “an effect and a cause”; in the same paragraph, same-sex marriage has “undermined” marriage – then it has simply “locked in and reinforced” an “existing trend;” the decline of marriage “closely tracks” the emergence of gay registered parttnerships. Please. The decline of smoking in America “closely tracks” the success of Republicans in Congress in the 1990s. So what? These kinds of unsubstantiated correlations, slippery links and simple associations would be laughed out of a freshman social science class. Did no one edit this? The truth is that for several decades, revolutions in contraception, feminism, the economy have all severed the linkage between marriage and procreation. If you want to take the institution back, go ahead and try. Or go visit Saudi Arabia (or Muslim enclaves in Scandinavia) where those connections are still tightly bound. But to pin all the change in marriage on gay couples – the only group that has had nothing to do with marriage decline in this century – is grotesque. And given that coupling – not procreation – is what civil marriage now is, we have two options. Accelerate the decline by devising new and more elaborate marriage-lite options for gays and straights (which is now, bizarrely, the position of National Review); or arrest it by bringing gays into the real institution and ask the same standards of them that we ask of everyone else. Then get rid of all the counterfeits. The great sadness of the last two decades is that many of us tried to persuade conservatives that they should put their defense of marriage before their fear and loathing of gays. For most, but not all, conservatives, we failed. What’s left is a Republican party devoted primarily to exclusion and fear – and to undermining the very institution they want to defend. And they still don’t see it. Maybe it will take their own destruction of civil marriage before they do.

CORRECTION: In tackling Krugman, I committed an error of hyperbole. I wrote that he had said that the “entire reason” for the deficit was tax cuts. He said the “main reason.” He did, however, omit any reference to the vast increase in discretionary domestic spending under Bush.

CORRECTION OF THE DAY

“Because of an editing error, a front-page article yesterday about David A. Kay, the C.I.A.’s former weapons inspector, misstated his view of whether the agency’s analysts had been pressured by the Bush administration to tailor their prewar intelligence reports about Iraq’s weapons programs to conform to a White House political agenda. Mr. Kay said he believed that there was no such pressure, not that there was. (His view was correctly reflected in a quotation that followed the error.)” – New York Times, today. Why do these errors almost always skew against the Bush administration?

POSEUR ALERT

“Yesterday I posted an announcement of my new piece on gay marriage. This piece, I believe, will shift the gay marriage debate from speculation about the future to a discussion of present realities. For that reason, I see it as the most important piece on gay marriage I’ve ever published.” – Stanley Kurtz, plugging yet another Very Important Article on marriage rights. (Don’t worry: I’m planning a substantive response soon.)

BLAIR ON THE BRINK

He could face a devastating defeat in parliament today over a very sensible reform on tuition fees for universities. Then tomorrow he faces the Hutton Report, which will lay out blame for the suicide of weapons scientist David Kelly. British prime ministers tend to disappear quickly. The odds are still that Blair will survive. But he is a deeply battered and frayed leader. This could be the biggest story of the week. As Matt would say, incoming …

CHENEY IN TROUBLE? The NYT picks up on his growing unfavorable ratings in the polls. Much of it is based on the shrill and often absurd attacks from the left on Halliburton. But some of it is self-inflicted. His adamant refusal even to contemplate that he didn’t misjudge the intelligence before the Iraq war is not a sign of intellectual confidence; it’s a measure of intellectual insecurity. The same can be said of his utter insouciance about endless deficit spending. His elusiveness has also lost its charm. He seems almost hostile to the general public – giving speeches to secluded or privileged groups or simply to fundraisers. None of this helps his public image. He’s right to get out more. But kicking off this campaign abroad is another indication that his staff have no sure political touch. The man needs to be out in America – in factories and military bases and schools. He has been acting like a cross between George Smiley and Louis XIV. Maybe he’s beginning to realize this is a democracy he’s vice-president of. And the people don’t have to re-elect him. If that’s the case: about time. He has a sharp mind, good instincts and great personal affect. So why hide away?

KRUGMAN BLAMES TAX CUTS

That’s the entire reason for the deficit. Yeah, right. But how can he ignore the obvious place of exploding domestic discretionary spending under Bush? Well, we have long learned about the fragility of his intellectual honesty. The lesson for Republican presidents: you will never get credit for spending, so don’t do it. Cut taxes; reduce spending. It’s the only governing philosophy that conservatives ever have a chance of winning with. But they never learn, do they?

KERRY’S ZIG-ZAGGERY: It’s impressive. Mickey has more evidence. But the fact that Kerry has taken (and rarely followed through on) many neo-liberal and even almost neoconservative positions over the years surely makes it harder for Rove to paint him as a stereotypical liberal. Yes, we pundits can rightly notice a man who’s as slinky as John Edwards’ bangs; but confusion about whether someone is a real liberal or “thoughtful” can only help insulate Kerry from being Dukakised. Weld tried it – and he still lost. More Kerryiana: John Ellis thinks writing off the South is simply Kerry’s advance spin before South Carolina. But I wonder if it isn’t a decent strategy. Imagine that the Dems don’t have to win the increasingly evangelical South. Couldn’t they tailor a message more to the libertarian West and Southwest, as well as Midwest and Northeast? There are many parts of the South that could be appealed to in a similar fashion. The GOP does the reverse, of course. They start with Southern white evangelicals and move out from there. Why can’t the Dems do the reverse?